WILD SIDE

After Lou Reed's Berlin concept album bombed, guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner helped him get his groove back. The result was Rock 'n' Roll Animal, the live classic that redeemed his spirit and saved his career.

- GARY GRAFF

THE LATE LOU Reed took his walk on the wild side in 1972. But he didn't become an animal a rock 'n' roll animal, to be specific - until the following year.

Recorded on December 21, 1973, before an audience at Howard Stein's Academy of Music in New York City, Rock 'n' Roll Animal was no mere stopgap or contract-fulfilling release. In its definitive performances and forceful renderings of the material, mostly from Reed's tenure with the Velvet Underground, it had all the conceptual integrity of a studio album. It documented an artist presenting his songs in a fresh manner, using the original versions as source material upon which to build and reinterpret, in this case with the help of an enormously potent band of genuinely animalistic caliber, led by guitarists Steve "The Deacon" Hunter and Dick Wagner.

And while the Allman Brothers Band's At Fillmore East and the Rolling Stones' Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out planted a flag for the live album as a legitimate artistic effort, Rock 'n' Roll Animal and its Gold-certified success certainly deserves some credit for a mid-'70s spike that included breakthrough live releases for Peter Frampton, Kiss, Cheap Trick, Lynyrd Skynyrd and others.